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gain strong conviction, contemplate the following. N ā g ā rjuna’s Treatise on the Middle says: a
    When it is taken that there is no self Except the appropriated [aggregates],
    The appropriated [aggregates] themselves are the self.
    If so, your self is nonexistent.
    Because the “I” and the aggregates would be inherently one, they would be one in all respects with utterly no division. Hence, the “I” and the aggregates would be none oth-er than partless. Then you could not present—in the context of that partless unity—the two different things: the “I” that is the appropriator of the five aggregates and the “five aggregates” that are appropriated by it. In that case, an assertion of “my body” or “my aggregates” would be sense-less.
    Ge-luk-pa scholars do not hold that N ā g ā rjuna thought that beings commonly conceive the “I” to be one with body or one with mind. Rather, his thought is that if the “I” inherently exists, then oneness with its basis of designation would be one of two exhaustive possibilities. N ā g ā rjuna’s reference is not to ordinary misconception but to a consequence of inherent existence, such concreteness requiring

    a rtsa shes / dbu ma’i bstan bcos, m ū laprajñ ā / madhyamaka śā stra, XXVII.5.
    26 Tantric Techniques

    a pointoutable identification under analysis.
    The rules for inherent existence, therefore, are not the rules for mere existence. Within the context of inherent existence, sameness of entity requires utter oneness in all respects. Thus, the issue that is central to evaluating the soundness of this reasoning is not whether beings ordinarily conceive of such oneness (since it is not claimed that we do), but whether the logical rules that have been formulated for the concrete, pointoutable existence identified in ordinary experience in the first step are appropriate.

    More reasonings
    The Fifth Dalai Lama continues with permutations of the same reasoning; the mere presence of the reasoning is clearly not expected to be convincing. For these further reasonings to work, the meditator needs to believe in rebirth. They are: If the “I” and the body are one, after death when the body is burned, the “I” also would absurdly be burned. Or, just as the “I” transmigrates to the next life, so the body also would absurdly have to transmigrate. Or, just as the body does not transmigrate, so the “I” also would absurdly not transmigrate.
    From meditating on such reasonings, you might come to think that probably the “I” is not the same as the body but is perhaps one with the mind, in which case you are asked to consider the following fallacies: Since it is obvious that the suffering of cold arises when the “I” is without clothes and it is obvious that the sufferings of hunger and thirst arise when the “I” lacks food and drink, these would—if the “I” were merely mental—be mental in origin, in which case one could not posit a reason why the same suffering would not be experienced in a life in a Formless Realm. Also, since the mind would be one with the “I,” it would absurdly still have to make use of gross forms such as food and clothing which do not exist in the Formless Realm. About these, the Fifth Dalai Lama says:
    If this also does not get to the heart of the matter, think:
    Because the “I” and the body are one, after death when the body is burned, the “I” would also be burned. Or, just as the “I” transmigrates to the next life, so the body also would have to transmigrate. Or, just as the body does not transmigrate, so the “I” also would not transmigrate.
    S ū tra Mode of Meditation 27

    Consider the application of such fallacies.
    Through having meditated thus, you come to think, “The ‘I’ is probably not the same as the body.” Then, if you think, “The ‘I’ is probably one with the mind,” consider this fallacy:
    The suffering of cold arises when the “I” is without clothes, and the